“My young men are to lay aside their weapons; they are to take up the work of women; they will plow the field and raise the crops; for them I see a future, but my women, they to whom we owe everything, what is there for them to do? I see nothing! You are a woman; have pity on my women when everything is taken from them.”

In a speech to the International Council of Women in 1888, suffragette and anthropologist, Alice Fletcher said “I crave for my Indian sisters, your help, your patience, and your unfailing labors, to hasten the day when the laws of the land shall know neither male nor female, but grant to all equal rights and equal justice.” In the 131 years following Alice Fletcher’s speech, women in general have gained a great many rights, but the Haudenosaunee women have lost many of theirs, and there remains an upward battle for equal justice.